


not sith, not truly

by veus



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:20:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29327688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veus/pseuds/veus
Summary: AU where the Exile never became an exile, and joined Revan as a Sith Lord after Malachor. Atton’s still Jaq, the Jedi hunter/torturer, and their paths cross.
Relationships: Female Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand, The Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand
Kudos: 9





	1. Recruit

**Author's Note:**

> every day i wake up and choose not to think about the plausibility of my settings, ever, at all

When Revan arrives, fashionably late, upon the ruins of Malachor V, Cela does not welcome her.

"You know you made the right call," Revan says.

Cela does not respond. The emptiness within is too great, and she will never be whole again.

"Don't be dramatic," Revan says, reading her accurately as always. "Come on, Pace. We've won. And if you need it..."

Revan puts a gloved hand on her shoulder. She can't help but flinch, still tender from the wound, and knowingly, Revan says, "I'll show you how to fix this."

✧ — ✧

"You're interested in my side projects?" Revan asks, delighted. She grins, pulling up her plans on the display between them, and motioning Cela over to explore them. "Finally, maybe _someone_ around here will appreciate my work."

Cela moves forward but doesn't take the invitation, keeping her hands clasped behind her back, instead.

"Just one of them," Cela says. "Your hunters."

"Oh," Revan says, then, " _Oh_. You're not still thinking about what I said yesterday, are you? It was just a thought experiment."

"It could happen. You rely too heavily on your ranks to report each other."

"Well, what am I going to do, have someone go in and assess all of them?" Revan says, with a roll of her eyes. She shuts the display down with a wave. "Anyone who's left is sure to have a weak connection to the Force."

"Any weakness can be improved," Cela says. "These are still valuable assets—ones whose potential you may actively be ruining."

"Fine, fine. Let's make that _your_ project, Pace," Revan says. "I didn't know you had so much time to spare from training our fresh recruits, but go ahead."

"There _are_ no fresh recruits," Cela says, quiet but steely. "As I said, you rely too heavily on your ranks to report."

"Then go with my blessing," Revan says, and waves Cela off, ever reticent to admit her oversights.

✧ — ✧

Cela's back within a week. Revan's still enjoying brunch.

"Hey, Pace!" Revan calls, as Cela enters. "You know you're one of the few I let walk in here when I'm busy."

 _That could change,_ is the warning that lies beneath those words, but Cela ignores it. She has always won Revan's favor back, and will again.

"I found one. A Force sensitive," Cela says.

"Just one?" Revan says, through a mouthful of bread. Swallowing it, she gives a smug smile, "And what's that you said about my reliance on reporting?"

"I've looked only through your hunters thus far."

Somewhat disappointed that Cela didn't take the bait to banter, Revan sighs.

"Focused as always, Pace. Well, let's hear it."

Cela hands her the datapad. Revan takes one look at it and drops her cutlery, appalled.

" _Rand?!_ No, you can't. Reports say he's one of my best!" Revan Force-pulls a datapad over from half the room away, nearly knocking over a decorative Sith artifact. "Look at this. Performance, skills, kill count—"

"He's Force sensitive."

"He's a prime example of how well my tactics work!"

"I want to take him as an apprentice."

"...What?" Revan breathes, surprise overriding her protest. " _You?_ Cela "I'll never get close to anyone again" Pace?"

Cela looks very much as though she'd rather not be having this conversation. Nevertheless, she presses on.

"If you are right about the effects of his training, and you often are," Cela says, as patiently as she can manage, "Training him in the Force will require a personal touch."

Revan takes another look at Cela's datapad, zooming in on the display.

"I guess he looks nice enough, if you're into that," Revan says. Cela pulls the datapad away with a scandalized expression, and Revan adds, "Come on, Pace. For _you_ do to something like this? You must finally be getting lonely."

"Do I have your approval?" Cela says formally, deliberately ignoring her. Revan takes one last wistful look at her prize hunter's stats, and sighs.

"Sure. But look, Pace, if you need someone to talk to, build a droid," Revan says, getting up and pulling Cela in familiarly by the shoulders as she gestures with her other hand. "They're customizable. Better than people. And if you let any sensitive information slip, they've got a built-in memory wipe."

Cela remains silent, her shoulders stiff under Revan's weight. Revan studies her.

"Does he have a nice voice?" Revan asks. "It's got to be his voice."

"Everything I do," Cela says quietly, "I do for you. I am training him to add another powerful Force user to our ranks. I am trying to meet _your goals_."

After one last look, Revan lets Cela go.

"Alright! I get it, no more questions," Revan says. "He's officially your responsibility now. Go claim your new apprentice."

✧ — ✧

A Jedi, bruised but very much alive, is shoved to the ground at the General’s feet. Bound tight, and with the barrel of a blaster trained on the back of his head, the Jedi speaks through gritted teeth.

"You will never—"

"Any trouble?" The General asks, ignoring the Jedi in favor of the hunter holding the blaster.

"None," Jaq says. The Jedi on the ground groans, saying something about "the right thing," and Jaq nods towards him. "Want me to shut him up?"

"No need. Leave us; I will be done in a moment."

Outside, two guards already frame the door, so Jaq leans against the opposite wall in the narrow hallway, arms crossed. For all the resources that had gone into this place, the walls still bleed noise from within, and in a few moments, a terrible wail of pain seeps through the cracks of the room he'd just left.

One of the guards winces.

"What do you think she does in there?" The guard asks. "That's not enough time to interrogate."

The other guard, wisely, keeps his mouth shut, and so does Jaq. The first guard tries again.

"Sith lords, they... they thrive off pain—"

"Are you a Jedi?" Jaq interrupts. The guard stutters.

"W-what? No—"

"Then you've got nothing to worry about. She's _only_ interested in Jedi."

The guard falls silent as he mulls that over. Then he says, "But _why_ only—"

"It's not your job to ask questions," Jaq says. He's not sure why he's helping; this guy doesn't seem like he'll last long, anyway. "If you want to last around here, you'll shut up. Like your colleague over there."

The other guard gives the first guard a sidelong glance and furtive nod. The first guard, thankfully, shuts up—and just in time, because the doors slide open, and the General emerges from the room. Beyond the dark sweep of her robes, Jaq can the limp, crumpled body of the Jedi left behind. He's no stranger to death, but lately something about the sight of her work has begun to unnerve him... some quality beyond the physical.

The General walks away without pause, knowing that he'll follow. Ignoring the odd feeling in his gut, Jaq jogs to fall back in step with her.

When he's back by her side, she glances at him.

"You've done everything I've asked of you," the General says.

"I _was_ assigned to you—" Jaq hesitates; he's tested many terms, none of which have felt right. "...Ma'am."

The General sighs, seemingly out of patience for his attempts. "Call me master."

Privately, he rolls his eyes. He guesses he should expect as much, from a former model Jedi—the self-importance just transfers over. He can't believe that, when they'd first met, he'd thought she could prove to be anything different.

"You have not once questioned my instructions," the General continues, oblivious to his detour of thought. "Why is that?"

"You know best," Jaq answers, automatically. It's such a safe answer that he doesn't anticipate when the General comes to a complete halt, leaving him walking a few steps free. When he turns back, confused, she holds him with her stare.

"Do I?" The General asks. "You must have other thoughts. I know your mind is not as empty as you purport it to be."

She steps closer; he can do nothing but stand there, a predator turned prey in her sights, as she tilts his chin down with a gloved hand to look him seriously in the eyes.

"If you are to learn, you will question the world around you," the General says. Her eyes are dark and cold, but not insincere. "Never follow an order you do not trust, or understand."

"I trust your judgment," he offers; another safe, empty answer. The General draws away with something akin to disdain, edged with a touch of disappointment.

"We have your performance to discuss," she says, instead. It seems her tangent is over.


	2. Potential

Walking across the desolate cracked earth of Korriban is not how Jaq imagined he'd be spending his day off. He's not even sure he _gets_ days off anymore. His work has been different ever since the General took him on, to the point where he suspects he's become some sort of personal assistant. Why else would he be sparring with her on a weekly basis, armed with only a specially treated vibroblade against her lightsaber? Forced to meditate when she does, in the painful quiet of her quarters? Instructed to shadow her as she performs her duties around the base, which mainly consist of administrative work so boring he could yawn?

And now she's even got him following her to _Korriban_. A shadow, cast by a high cliff to the left, claims first the General, then him walking in her wake. He shivers as he passes into it. He'd thought the heavy sunlight had been bad, but the shade could give it a run for its credits. He doesn't remember Korriban being like this. The last time he'd been here, the dust had been boring, and the giant statues had left him with a vague sense of unease. This time, he'd gotten that feeling of unease when Korriban was still an approaching dot in the distance, and it'd only intensified as they'd gotten closer. Now that he's actually set foot on it, it's like the whole planet has him on edge.

The General looks back at him, takes in his hunched shoulders and stiff back, and merely smiles.

Consistent with strange shadow that's been cast over his day, the academy's stone face cut into the narrow channel between high cliffs is a lot more imposing than he remembers it. The General walks up to the tall twin doors, which open for her with a low, growling grind. Before Jaq can come up to his customary six paces behind her, the doors halt in their tracks, leaving a comparatively thin gap from which a Twi'lek woman in dark robes emerges.

The General and the Twi'lek exchange low words, and finish with short, decisive nods. The Twi'lek disappears back into the darkness, and the General turns back to address Jaq, who'd paused in his approach.

"The plan has changed," the General says. "You will not join me today. I will meet you back at the ship when I'm finished with my business here."

And she, too, disappears into the darkness between the doors without a glance back. The doors grind shut behind her. Jaq stands, uncomfortable and irritated, alone.

"Well, it looks like I've gotten my time off after all," Jaq says, to no one. "On Korriban. Great."

He turns around and heads back down the path they'd come up on. Back on the ship, with the hum of the engine to back his thoughts and the distraction of pazaak to pass his time, he might be able to forget what planet he's on for a while. Hands in his pockets, he kicks a stray stone along to accompany him on his path; the stone just misses falling into the cracks in the earth with each rolling stop.

With his next kick, it rolls—and rolls, and rolls. It hits a bump and, after jumping up into the air, _plinks_ back down to the earth, landing just within the confines of a dark shadow. Raising his gaze from the ground, Jaq finds that the stone has landed at the mouth of a dark cave. That's strange—he doesn't remember a cave on their approach to the academy. Then again, he wasn’t really looking around.

He's about to shrug and walk away, but… he finds that he doesn't really want to. Yes, if he takes a step closer, that unease that's been building within him _shifts_ , and with each following step, his intent becomes clear.

✧ — ✧

It seems the hierarchy Cela had left in place could use some work.

All petty squabbles have now been cleared, but Cela hadn't imagined that even after she'd followed Revan to the dark side, she'd still be serving as a mediator. A peacekeeper she is not, though, not anymore: she'd returned only a _semblance_ of peace to the academy, and left existing tensions to simmer below.

She walks up the ramp to the ship, her apprentice's name on her tongue to summon him for the flight back, but as soon as she enters, she knows he isn't there. While Cela has not known him very long, she doubts Jaq is the type to sight-see, especially on a planet such as this. She turns back the way she came.

✧ — ✧

When Jaq comes to, the General is leaning over him.

"I… What…?" He groans, fighting the urge to curl in on himself, attempting to push himself up, instead.

"Are you in pain?" The General asks.

"Obv—" The word breaks upon his lips, followed by a grunt of pain. "—Obviously."

"Good," she says, sitting back. The sunlight she'd been shielding from him hits him square in the eyes; he squints hard, now in pain _and_ looking like an idiot. "Let it motivate you to grow stronger."

He finally manages to push himself into a sitting position, though it leaves his breath hard and heavy. The General has made not one move to assist him in the time that has passed since he opened his eyes. Actually, he thinks, he can't recall her ever making a move to physically help him, not in the whole time she’d known him.

Her eyes are still on him. He doesn't know if it matters if he looks bitter.

"What did you see?" The General asks.

"See? I…." He shakes his head. "I was going back to the ship."

"The cave," she prompts. "You entered it, and you ended it unconscious."

Memory filters slowly back into his still-sluggish mind. Emotion comes first—he'd been determined, he remembers. He'd stopped running from his fights when he signed on under Revan, and he'd been itching to track down the source of the unease of Korriban since the moment they'd touched down.

Then he'd seen himself. Not as a reflection, but a three-dimensional copy, walking, mirroring his actions as he circled it—and it circled him back. The strangest thing was that his copy wasn't poised to attack, like he was; there was something specific about the way the copy held itself, as though he were the wary prey, and the copy the one trying to present itself as harmless, to draw close.

He hadn't liked that. He'd liked it even less when his copy _spoke_.

"I saw myself," Jaq says, slowly. "He tried to talk to me. He insisted that everything about my path was wrong. That I… made the wrong choice."

"And then?"

He doesn't remember who drew first. Him, with his paltry vibroblade, and its edge treated to resist the blows of a lightsaber; or his copy, who'd revealed dual lightsabers, with blades that shone a damning gold. It had been beyond frustrating—to have trained in methods to take down Jedi, but be left with none of the necessary equipment to defend himself against his twisted copy, since the General had insisted that he "wouldn't need" them on Korriban. The General had given him one thing, though: his copy had fought like her, albeit without the benefit of her patience, and he'd been able to counter its blows with the forms she'd shown him when they sparred.

"I fought him." But without the equipment and the experience, the duel had been decided before it had even begun. "I lost."

"This encounter, yes," The General says. "But it does not decide your battle. This will not be the last time you face the deception of the light side."

Those words cut through the dullness of his thoughts. Understanding clears his features, and the General stands, ending his recount.

"Join me on the ship when you are able to walk," she instructs him. "Do not keep me waiting."

As she walks away, he calls after her, "You could've told me you were training me!"

She doesn't look back; he doesn't expect her to.

✧ — ✧

Back on the ship, everything is the way he left it. The General is seated in the cockpit, right beside the empty pilot's seat. Jaq takes his place there, and glances over at her as he prepares the ship for departure.

"If I'd known what you were doing sooner, I would've tried harder at it," Jaq says.

"Would you?" The General says. "Or would you have feared it—believed it would have changed you at your core?"

He doesn't know how she'd reached into his mind, when his defenses are up and he hadn't felt her enter.

He pulls the ship out of Korriban's atmosphere, priming them for the jump, but pauses with his hand on the lever.

"What did I see, in there? Was any of it real? Or..."

"It was a vision," she says. "It is up to you to interpret it."

He nods, grim.

"That version of myself, he was tainted by Jedi," Jaq says. "I want to erase every possibility of him."

And as he activates the jump to hyperspace, the General sits back, pleased to feel his conviction as her own.


	3. Approval

His wounds may have been cauterized on strike, but while blood loss won't kill him, the pain itself might.

"She escaped," the General states over his comm. His hand shaky, his breath labored, Jaq barely manages to activate it to respond.

"For now," he says. The voice that leaves him is rough, dark. "I'm going after her."

"No. You will heal," the General says, instruction beneath the observation. "Even you cannot push yourself forever."

Ignoring the burning in his lungs, he collects his breath, and tries to push himself to his feet once more. He gets as far as his knees, and his arms buckle, sending him crumpling back to the ground.

"You've attempted to stand and collapsed, haven't you?" Comes over the comm in his silence. He lets out a frustrated growl to the cold emptiness of his surroundings; his breath leaves him in another puff of fog in the dead air.

"I'm out of medpacks," he says, when his pain has abated enough for him to speak. "And I'm alone."

He'd followed the Jedi out into the wilderness, and lost her among the underbrush and still trees. Aside from the local flora, which loom menacingly over his fallen form, this corner of the planet feels dead. He doubts anyone, not even a stray creature of this place, would stumble upon him anytime soon.

"A problem for your old self, perhaps. But not for you."

"There's nothing to drain," he emphasizes. "I've reached out to look, like you've told me to."

"I know. I want you to heal," the General says.

"Heal? But I—" He's not _good_ at it, is what he'd say, but the more accurate answer is, "I _can't._ "

He can't so much as heal a scratch. She's told him to clear his mind—he can't, not while she's there. She's told him to focus, but apparently, he's never done it well enough. He doesn't understand the technique; it doesn't feel like the rest of the abilities she's shown him, which take advantage of the emotion set deep in his chest.

"You brought yourself here," the General begins, calmly.

He knows that if anyone else had made the move he did, they would've been called reckless—but he'd _studied_ the situation. He'd calculated the risks. It just so happened that his luck was against him.

"You made your choice, and now you must make another. Do you want to live?"

He didn't walk away from the ruins of Malachor V only to let its death claim him here.

"Yes," Jaq says. "Show me, one more time."

He doesn't know if it's the cold, or the pain, or the utter isolation of the space he's found himself in, but as she speaks, her words sound _different_. Less like she's directing him and commanding him to act upon her will, and more like she is guiding him, showing him the curves of a familiar path. Perhaps this is the way she's always sounded—he'd just never bothered to notice. He closes his eyes, evens his breaths, and lets her lead him to her lesson's conclusion. His efforts should not be trained on himself as an observer, but as a force from within.

A rustling of leaves interrupts his focus. His eyes open, and his hand flies to his weapon, ready to defend himself—but what emerges from the still trees around him is none other than the General herself.

"Good work, apprentice," she says.

The sense of accomplishment that'd briefly washed over him disappears, slammed shut behind the doors of irritation.

"You were here the whole time?" Jaq asks, feeling himself grow frustrated once more. "You couldn't give me a hand?"

"I just arrived," the General says. "Calm yourself, apprentice. If I had helped you, you would've never learned to save yourself."

She draws close, and lowers herself to a kneel beside him. Jaq sits up, still wary, but distantly aware that his movements no longer burn with so much pain. Then she prods the gash in his chest.

"Ow!" Jaq cries, recoiling from her. "What was that for?!"

"Your work is acceptable," the General says, and dusts her gloved hand off on her robes, as though touching him had briefly dirtied it. "Can you stand?"

"Yes," Jaq says, still irritated with her. But he follows her lead without complaint as she sets off through the underbrush.

As they walk, his irritation fades, his head clears, and he realizes: the math here doesn't add up.

"What were you doing here?" Jaq asks, breaking the silence.

"I had business nearby," the General says. Her stride does not break, and she keeps moving without looking back.

Except she's lying, Jaq thinks. He _knows_ all of her business, now, and none of it placed her anywhere near his mission. Watching her back as she walks, he can tell by her posture that she's cold, underdressed for the weather. Her normally neat hair lays untidy, and upon her boots, one loose buckle sways with her every step. She'd rushed out to come looking for him. For _him_.

He lets that sink in.

"That power," Jaq says, at length. "It was different. It calls on the light side, doesn't it?"

"The light side has its uses, particularly in aiding survival," the General says. "Using it is a necessary burden in a world where you cannot depend on anyone but yourself. To others, you can always be sacrificed."

"You can depend on me," Jaq says.

"More empty words," she says. "Didn't I tell you to leave those behind?"

But they're not empty. He'll show her they aren't.

✧ — ✧

"You look different these days," Revan says. "What's happened to you lately?"

"I just told you," Cela says, pushing her datapad into Revan's view once more. Revan simply waves it aside.

"No, not that. It wouldn't have anything to do with your apprentice, would it?" Revan puts her feet up on the table, and leans back in her seat, casual. "Even _I've_ heard the talk around the base, you know."

"What talk?" Cela asks; she hasn't heard anything about this.

"Oh, you know. Rumors about how you spend your time together, what you're "really" teaching him." Revan pauses, then adds as though it were inconsequential, "The way he looks at you doesn't help."

"How—"

"Like a lost puppy who's chosen his master," Revan says, having known Cela would ask before Cela knew it herself. "Like he'd follow you anywhere. What happened?"

Nothing, Cela thinks—except perhaps for Korriban. The conviction she had felt from him had been a promise, and it had delivered. Jaq has since dedicated himself to his training, to a degree beyond her initial expectations, and lately, when she instructs him, she feels sometimes that they are... in sync.

"We came to an understanding," Cela says.

Revan nods, as though done with her questioning. Then, "So you _don't_ kiss?"

Cela's caught so off guard that she drops her datapad. "No!"

"Just making sure," Revan says. "I approved an apprentice, not a boyfriend."

Cela could be anywhere else right now, very pointedly _not_ discussing this. Revan's last words seem like a valid stopping point, so Cela picks her datapad back up and makes to leave. Revan stops her just before she reaches the door.

"Oh, just one more thing," Revan says. "You've been looking paler, lately. Your apprentice not feeding you enough?"

Cela has to pause—she can never anticipate how readily Revan switches tracks.

"Don't call it that," Cela says first, then, "I'm no longer asking him to. I want him to focus on his training."

"Well, keep an eye on yourself, Pace," Revan says, light and friendly. "Wouldn't want you to collapse on me."

✧ — ✧

Cela wishes she'd never heard what the "talk around the base" has to say about her. More than once, today, she's had to forcibly clear her mind.

"Something wrong?" Jaq asks.

"Nothing," Cela says. But Jaq knows when she’s lying, these days, and persists.

"Come on. Is it something I did? You haven't looked at me all day."

Yes, ever since Revan's simple question had cursed her, she hasn't been able to look Jaq in the eye. Even now, when she is forced to face him, she averts her gaze.

Jaq gives a low chuckle.

"I get it," he says. "It's my face, isn't it? I look like I haven't slept in weeks. I knew this would happen, but… I guess I wasn't really prepared for it."

"It's not your face."

"You don't have to go easy on me," Jaq says. "I don't blame you for wanting to preserve the memory of what I looked like; _I_ would. It's just going to get worse from here on, isn't it?"

At this, Cela raises her gaze, and realizes that Jaq's been holding himself with his head slightly bowed. It's enough to pull her from the lingering storm of her thoughts.

"It is not going to "get worse,"" Cela says, stepping forward to meet him. Her initiative makes her feel like her usual self again—back in control. "This is a marker of your growing power."

Jaq raises his eyes to hers, unconvinced, then shocked when she takes his face in her hands.

"I do not need to preserve the image of who you were before," Cela says. "All I want to see is who you are _now_."

She gazes upon him then, to emphasize her point, only to find her breath caught. She's committed to memory every expression she’s seen him wear, but the look he's giving her now is none of them. His eyes are dark and focused upon hers, and his lips…

"I… hadn't looked at it that way," Jaq says, low. "I think the same of you, though. I want to see you as you are."

Those visions are back again—the version of events where she leans in, making the rumors true. Pulling away, she releases herself from his presence.

“Do as you will,” Cela says. “...Apprentice.”

His hands, which had risen as if he'd been about to hold her, quickly return to his pockets.

“Back to being so formal?”

“Until I find your name deserving again.”

"Then yours," Jaq says. "Am I allowed to use it?"

A month ago, she would have shut him down. A month ago, she wouldn't have considered it. Even now, she should refuse, but…

"Yes," she says. "When it is only us, alone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> accompanying sketches:  
> [scrapped version of cela's pep talk](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/post/642440096632668160/scrapped-version-of-her-pep-talk)  
> [the original page addressing how atton was afraid of being changed](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/post/633864699167096832/marks)


	4. Rejection

"The academy has felt your absence for too long," Sion says. "As have I."

"I have had other business, Darth Sio—"

"No need for formalities, _Cela_ ," Sion says. "We're alone."

Jaq can barely conceal his look of disgust. Sure, they're alone—if Jaq and the soldiers stationed in the landing bay don't count as people. Cela doesn't look like she approves of what Sion said either, but she also looks like she's been through this dance with him before.

"Revan is waiting for us," Cela says, choosing not to acknowledge Sion's words. "Shall we—"

"I've brought you a gift," Sion says. "It waits for you in the hold of the ship."

"I'll receive it later—"

"You'll receive it now, before it perishes," Sion says. He stalks around her, observing her. "Revan was right… you've allowed yourself to grow weak. How unlike you."

Cela's lips are thin with annoyance, but she doesn't say another word. She leaves for Sion's ship. Jaq follows, itching to insult Sion with her behind the guy's back, but Cela stops him with a hand on his chest.

"I'll go alone," Cela says. Her hand lingers on his chest for just a moment, before she pulls away. "Show him in. Revan will grow impatient."

"He can show himself in," Jaq says, but Cela gives him a minute shake of her head: this is an order. Reluctantly, Jaq watches her go, clinging to the sight of her form until she disappears into the depths of the ship.

"So eager to chase after your master," Sion comments, from closer than he had been. "Your devotion marks you more slave than apprentice."

Jaq grimaces. He had _felt_ Sion's presence creeping up behind him—he just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.

"It's called loyalty," Jaq says. "And at least I _chose_ my master. I doubt you even know what chains you."

He's shooting blindly, here, but his words find their target when Sion growls.

"You know nothing, fool," Sion says, his cracked lips twisting into a snarl, "Least of all your master. She barred you from following her; that should tell you as much."

"I respect her boundaries," Jaq says, "Unlike some."

"And so you remain ignorant," Sion says. " _I_ have fought to know her. _I_ have proven my strength. And when the time comes, I will be the one to claim her—to _save_ her."

 _Save_ her? Jaq has to laugh—and he does.

"All she needs saving from is your attention," Jaq says. "Do yourself a favor, and—"

"You're still here," says Cela, coming up beside them. Jaq turns to address her, as does Sion, but Jaq beats him to the punch.

"Lord Sion here wanted to wait for you," Jaq says. "I said Revan wouldn't like it, but he insisted on it."

He expects the growl before he even hears it. " _You—_ "

"I see," Cela says, interjecting before Sion can respond. "How considerate."

Jaq watches out of the corner of his eye as Sion quickly bites the rest of his words back. Predictable.

✧ — ✧

Hours after Sion has left the base once more, Jaq finds himself with Cela in the quiet of her quarters at dusk.

"He was fun," Jaq says. "I can see why you keep him around."

Cela sighs.

"Revan sees a use for him, and I know better than to question her."

She's rearranging her folded robes for the fourth time. Sion must really bother her.

"That gift," Jaq says, "Did it at least make up for the visit?"

He expects a simple answer, one to dismiss Sion's shadow from their day, but Cela turns away, the edge of her expression gone cold.

"No," she says. "…I refused it."

✧ — ✧

Cela's late.

Jaq has never known her to be late, not without prior warning. He checks his comm: on, and still functional. He checks the corridor outside the training room: occupied, but lacking her presence.

He takes the turbolift, passing every floor above, until at last he arrives at hers, and enters her quarters. He calls her name, only to find the edge of her familiar robes spilled from the dark shadow of her room, in which she has—

"No!" Jaq cries, rushing to her side. He can see no marks upon her, or signs of struggle around her, but she's collapsed, crumpled to the floor like a discarded cloak. Beyond her outstretched hand lays a fallen holocron, only partially activated; he tears his eyes away from it, frustrated that in such a moment he would notice something so useless.

Her face is too pale, and her body too cold, but he holds her in his arms, pressing his fingers to her neck to feel her pulse. He stills his breath, waits, and—

—Nothing. Or he isn't sure. He has _never not been sure._

"Don't die on me now, Cela." His voice trembles; he hates it.

He just needs to find her pulse. He'd do anything for it. Anything, to hear her voice, to have her look upon him again, to see her give him that secretive smile once more—

A pull, light and almost inquisitive, acts at the edge of his awareness. And he understands.

"Go ahead," Jaq says. "I can take it."

✧ — ✧

Cela exists in the most pleasant dream.

She's held close to the beat of a steady heart, with kisses gifted upon her hair as she rests her head, quietly, in the crook between a familiar neck and shoulder. When he rests his head against hers, swaying them closer, she melts, nestling in and losing herself in his familiar scent.

"Jaq....” But as soon as she voices his name, he fades away.

She wakes, to the cold familiarity of her quarters. His scent is gone, his touch, his low chuckle, until she can find an excuse to seek them out once more.

But then, when she sits up, she finds the object of her dreams at her bedside.

Jaq's head and shoulders slump over her blankets, one of his arms folded under his cheek, and the other reaching out beyond it, so that his hand may hold hers. She looks over the edge of the bed—he's on his knees, and had likely fallen asleep that way.

She can't remember why he's here.

"Jaq?" She says.

"Mmph," Jaq says. "Five more minutes." He adjusts his makeshift arm pillow, shifts, and finds the softness of her thigh. Her face goes hot.

"Jaq," she says, nudging his shoulder. " _Wake up_."

A furrow forms in his brow, deepening with each shake she gives him until—

" _What?_ What's so important that I—!" He opens his eyes complaining—but when he sees her, all such words fall away. "Cela. You're back with me."

"Yes, I'm here—ah!" He embraces her, gathering her in close in his arms as he squeezes her tight. It's more stifling than her dream, but not altogether unpleasant. The relief radiating from him washes over her, warming her from within.

Never before did she think that dreams could cross into reality. "What warrants this?"

"I was hoping you could tell me that," Jaq says. She tries not to miss his warmth too obviously as he turns away, picking something hitherto concealed by his form up from the floor. He shows it to her: a holocron.

Yes, Cela remembers—she'd gone access it, a typically trivial task, but seeing as its only partially activated, she must have failed. If she had to guess, she'd overestimated her remaining strength, and she'd pushed forth more Force energy than she had left.

But that means she shouldn't feel _better_ now than she did the day before. She looks to Jaq; he's waiting patiently for her answer, but also not particularly waiting at all, just relieved to see her. She must have passed out. And in that desperate state, only one thing would have revived her.

"…Cela?" Jaq prompts. As her silence stretches on, Jaq's expression only grows puzzled. She doesn't want that—she wants him to say that he's figured it out. That he'd managed to deduce her secret, one kept so well that only a select few Sith Lords know it. She wants him to tell her that, he had to work quickly, but he brought her a straggler from the force cages where they hold their Jedi prisoner.

But there are no Jedi left, and her secret is yet kept. There is only him.

"Oh," Jaq says, as she stays silent longer still, "I get it. I know you prefer healing, but there wasn't enough time. I'd never been on the other end of it, but I—"

"You have to go," Cela says.

"What? No!" Jaq lets the holocron drop to the side, where it rocks once upon her bed and hits the wall by her blankets. She'd scold him, but he has eyes for nothing but her, and a concern she hadn't noticed earlier etched deep into his features. "You've been out for too long—I'm not leaving you on your own."

For a moment, she imagines it: letting him stay, and care for her, as she recovers. But she cannot trust the emptiness at her core to act as her heart does and spare him.

"If you value your life, you will," Cela says. She closes shut her heart; it will only lead them to ruin. "This is an order: leave me, now."

"I won't. I'm here to help you. You might not like it, but you can't always save yourself," Jaq says, his emotion building with every word, into a storm she no longer recognizes. "I don't know what's eating away at you, Cela, but I want to! _I can't help_ if you don't let me in. I'd almost lost—you'd nearly _died_ before you'd let me—"

Cela _pushes_ him away, and though Jaq fights it, she uses the very Force energy she'd stolen from him to hold him by the throat. She staggers out of bed, still weak, but determined.

"Let you _save_ me? You were always meant to be an instrument of my will, nothing more. Did you think that I returned your feelings? Your dreams, your desires? You are nothing to me but a failure of an apprentice. _Leave_."

She throws him out of her quarters, but she’s too weak to make it any more than a push that sends him stumbling out of her doorway. Before she can command the doors to close shut on his image, Jaq catches his breath, and she hears the last of his words.

" _Fine_ ," Jaq says. "Then I'm no longer yours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> accompanying sketches:  
> [pretty much what happened between the last chapter and this one](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/post/634800710522945536/jaq-blushing-first-sounds-like-youre-obsessed)  
> [jaq, to sion](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/post/642138711990173697/competition)  
> [in another timeline cela would've just needed some sleep](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/post/634553537524793344/someone-said-darkcela-please-get-some-sleep)


	5. Truth

"Pace!" Revan says, when Cela enters. "You're back with us. Heard you got into a little fight."

Revan sounds as amiable as ever, and doesn't comment on the reason for Cela's absence. Cela had, at least, expected to be asked why she hadn't accepted Revan's assistance, in the form of Sion’s visit.

"It was necessary," Cela says. "I'm ready to resume my duties."

Revan looks up from mixing her drink, tapping the stirrer on the edge of her glass twice to clear the remaining droplets.

"Not so fast, Pace." Revan takes a leisurely sip from her drink, and says, "Your apprentice stormed into our records and cleared the place out, save for him. To anyone who dares to peek in, it looks like he's doing research."

"He's not my apprentice anymore," Cela says. Revan looks like she'd suspected she'd hear that, and smiles over the rim of her glass.

"Ah, but he is _your project._ Your project, your problem, Pace," Revan says. "Isn't that what you said to me when my prototype assassin droid went on a rampage?"

That is an entirely separate case, Cela wants to say. The droid only had to be put down. Jaq is different: she's known him too deeply to destroy him now. And to see him again, after how they parted... she doesn’t know how to stand before him in a way that does not leave her vulnerable.

Revan, patiently watching Cela's face, suddenly claps her on the shoulder.

"Well! I don't have time for this," Revan says. "Go clean your mess up."

✧ — ✧

The doors have been blown open with no regard for their sliding mechanisms. Cela observes the damage dealt to the doors and their internal circuitry, and even still, admires how Jaq's power has grown. Jaq lies within—she can feel it, his storm of emotion that persists still—and she allows her feet to take her towards its center.

"What are you looking for?" Cela calls, as she walks. His response echos to her.

"A way to save you."

"There's nothing to save, Jaq. These years I've lived since Malachor, I've stolen from the Force. I am on a path towards death; I'm at peace with that."

She finds him: a lone figure in a dark room, dressed once more in the standard garb of a Sith soldier, rather than the robes she'd given him. From within the shadows, his eyes glare, and he abandons his work, stalking forward towards her.

"Listen to yourself. You sound like the Jedi you left behind," Jaq says. "You’re not at peace; you're giving up, like a coward."

"You're wrong."

"Am I? Why else did you choose me? I can get you what you need—but for some reason, you decided not to use me."

They stand just an arm's length apart, now, separated only by Cela's reluctance. She breaks her eyes away from the passion of his gaze.

"I chose you because I saw potential in you," Cela says. "One that's been realized. You've progressed faster than any other I've trained. With time, you could become truly great."

"I don't _care_ about—"

"With time, you could replace me."

Jaq's anger stalls, giving way to disbelief. She continues.

"I don’t trust Revan, or any of the Sith Lords under her foot, to run this empire in a way that does not drive it to destroy itself," Cela says. "When I can no longer influence them, I want you to keep them in check."

"That's not what you want," Jaq says. "This life _bores_ you. Leave, and let them burn."

Cela can't imagine leaving. After Malachor V, when Revan had shown her how she could continue to live as she had before, she'd known that she could never return to the Jedi bearing such a technique. Then, when Revan told her of the war she planned to wage against the Jedi, Cela knew that if she chose to run from it, she would deprive herself of sources of the Force. Unwilling to make herself an outcast caught between two sides of the war, scavenging what she could from either side, she chose to join Revan in a position of power.

"I can find you Force users to drain," Jaq continues, as though sensing her wavering will. "The Jedi, the Sith—I can hunt them and their deserters to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. You will live; I promise it."

Yes… deserters. Her mistake was in assuming that all would stay and fight. Students slip away from the academy, and soldiers disappear in the dead of night. And what of the ignorant, whose affinity with the Force lays dormant, just waiting to be awakened with the guidance of the right master?

She looks to Jaq, once more, and the mesmerizing depths of his gray eyes. He looks so alive, so animated—it compels her to live as he does. But he has sacrificed himself to her once before.

"No. I will not have you serve me," Cela says.

"That's not what I'm offering," Jaq says. He is more serious than she's ever seen him, each word a step towards an admission she has never allowed him to reach. "I've never served you. I've—"

She silences him with a hand over his lips.

"Don't say it," Cela says. "Not yet."

When she takes her hand away, it trembles on its path of return to her side. Jaq stands silent, impatient but waiting, and she drops her gaze from his, unable to endure his stare any more.

"Listen to me. Allowing me to drain you should have killed you. It should have left you nothing more than a husk, a void where the Force once was." The fear she'd felt when she'd realized what he'd done—it was little compared to what she'd felt in the quiet of the room afterwards. "I don't know what truly happened. I—I don't know what I've _done_ to you."

Jaq is calm in the face of her fear.

"Does it matter?" He asks. "I'm alive, and so are you."

"I will not ruin you, and lose you, like the others," she says.

"You've already ruined me," Jaq says, taking the curve of her face into his hands, the way she did him so long before. "You ruined me the moment you saved me. You ruin me every time you look at me, like this."

Her breath is caught once again, and her heart—her heart wants her to close her eyes, and give in. But these are not her quarters, and they are not alone; she is too conscious of the fact that they are an impending spectacle.

"Not here?" Jaq asks.

"Not here," Cela answers.

But despite it all, they've reached an understanding. And as they exit, walking past the stray onlookers who scramble to clear out of their way, she turns her thoughts towards their escape.

✧ — ✧

"I've figured it out," Jaq says.

"Have you?" Cela says. Her eyes remain closed, and the volume of her voice barely above a murmur, as she rests beside the steady beating of Jaq's heart. He's abandoned the stiff fabric of his old standard issue shirts, and traded it for one no less dark, but far more comfortable. She sighs in content.

"You're not even listening to me, are you," Jaq says. To the responding shake of her head, he sighs and says, "Guess I am just an instrument to you, after all."

"You are nothing to me," Cela confirms, pulling him closer with the arm she's looped around his waist. It does little, so to indulge her, Jaq shifts so that he lies a little closer, himself.

"What is it?" Cela asks, after a time. "What you figured out."

"Oh. Nothing—I was going to say that you must've spared me back then to use me for my warmth. All that talk about achieving my potential as a Sith Lord must've been a misdirect: you've turned me into a handsome, heated pillow."

"…I've been thinking about it," Cela says.

"The pillow? You're already using it." Idly, Jaq brushes a few untidy strands of hair back from her face, to tuck behind her ear. She gazes up at him.

"Not that. What happened, to allow you to survive," Cela says. "I think it's because it was you."

Jaq looks at her a moment, then laughs.

" _Me?_ " Jaq says. "Alright. What's so special about me?"

"That I loved you," Cela says. "That you returned it. That our bond was of a kind I hadn't allowed myself since Malachor. I think—"

She searches for her next words, then sighs.

"Revan would have known how to explain it fully," Cela says. "But it is something."

She expects them both to fall silent once more, but Jaq considers what she'd said for a moment, then smirks down at her.

"No, I see," Jaq says. "So you're finally admitting that you loved me even then."

Her face grows warm.

"Well—of course," Cela says. "You know this."

"Mm," he acknowledges, "But you've never said it."

"You could feel it. Why would I need to say it?" Closing her eyes, she buries her face in his shirt, seeking her paradise of contentment once more.

"Come on, Cela, just once," Jaq prompts her. "You could do it now. I swear I'm not listening."

"Your lies are useless," she says, muffled against his chest.

But, indulging him, she abandons her realm of comfort. She lifts her lips to his ear, and whispers the true nature of her love to him, one that he has always known.


End file.
